Spotlight :The Last of the Firedrakes by Farah Oohmerbhoy

Book Review: A Strangeness in my mind by Orhan Pamuk

Introduction

• ISIN: 978-0307700292
• Genre: Fiction
• Publishers: Random House
• Price: Rs. 1824.73/- (I got this book from the publisher for a review)

From the Nobel Prize winner and best-selling author of Snow and My Name Is Red: a soaring, panoramic new novel—his first since The Museum of Innocence—telling the unforgettable tale of an Istanbul street vendor and the love of his life.

Since his boyhood in a poor village in Central Anatolia, Mevlut Karataş has fantasized about what his life would become. Not getting as far in school as he’d hoped, at the age of twelve he comes to Istanbul—“the center of the world”—and is immediately enthralled by both the old city that is disappearing and the new one that is fast being built. He follows his father’s trade, selling boza (a traditional mildly alcoholic Turkish drink) on the street, and hoping to become rich, like other villagers who have settled the desolate hills outside the booming metropolis. But luck never seems to be on Mevlut’s side. As he watches his relations settle down and make their fortunes, he spends three years writing love letters to a girl he saw just once at a wedding, only to elope by mistake with her sister. And though he grows to cherish his wife and the family they have, he stumbles toward middle age in a series of jobs leading nowhere. His sense of missing something leads him sometimes to the politics of his friends and intermittently to the teachings of a charismatic religious guide. But every evening, without fail, Mevlut still wanders the streets of Istanbul, selling boza and wondering at the “strangeness” in his mind, the sensation that makes him feel different from everyone else, until fortune conspires once more to let him understand at last what it is he has always yearned for.

Told from different perspectives by a host of beguiling characters, A Strangeness in My Mind is a modern epic of coming of age in a great city, a brilliant tableau of life among the newcomers who have changed the face of Istanbul over the past fifty years. Here is a mesmerizing story of human longing, sure to take its place among Pamuk’s finest achievements.

Behind the book

Source: www.amazon.in

Book Review: My Dream Man by Aditi Bose

Introduction

• ISIN: 9789385137303
• Genre: Romance/ Drama / Fiction
• Publishers: Author's Ink Publications
• Price: Rs. 200/- 

I don’t know if I can do a story like this once again or not.

Ajopa Ganguly, a struggling writer, is reeling from the pains of her manuscript having been rejected by all publishers. She knows that making cupcakes and embroidering handkerchiefs is not her true calling. However, she is scared to write anymore and is losing focus.

Aniket Verma, is the professor of economics who was also Ajopa’s tuition teacher once. Despite their twelve years age gap, with time, they forge a special bond of friendship.

Then a misunderstanding!

Now Aniket is back and it feel just like old times. With a challenge of finishing a new manuscript in record time and a promise that he will help her to get it published if she does, he asks her to meet him at the publisher’s office two days later.

Does she write?

Does she go to the publisher’s office?

At what moment does their friendship change?

Do they fall in love?

My Dream Man, a let-me-tell-my-friends and I-need-to-finish-this-now story, is an insightful examination of how forces beyond our control help us make decisions. As Ajopa says, it is all about ‘deep choosing’.

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Behind the book

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